


Unwinding Time

by idelthoughts



Series: Tumblr Ask Box Fic [6]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, Tinfoil Pocketwatch Theories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3583515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Abe woke up to find a five year old sitting on his bed, Abe was finally sure he was going to lose his dad.  This was not how he expected it to end.  But then, Henry wasn’t like anyone else—why should the end of his story be any less strange than the rest of his life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwinding Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is a combination of two prompts: 
> 
> _Abe and Jo, Magic,_ and _Henry is de-aged, and everyone has to deal with it. He doesn’t remember anything._

Henry was fastidious about winding his pocket watch. It did not lose time in a significant way, having always been a remarkably reliable time piece, but over the course of a month it could slip slightly. So, his ritual had become to maintain and reset it on the first of each month.

Well before his traditional reset, however, Henry noticed he was losing time. A minute, then five, then ten, all over the course of a week. Each day he reset it, and each day it lost a little more.

When thirty minutes were gone one morning, he sat on the edge of the bed and watched it tick, and realized the second hand had slowed from its normal precision, lagging ever so slightly. He was reluctant to let it into the hands of someone else for maintenance and so did nothing, but dread over the slow demise of the only object he had from his life before this long slog through time slowly crept into his thoughts, making him short tempered and preoccupied—an unusual state, given how often he faced unexpected stress and managed to rise above it. He hadn’t realized how deeply he cared for the small and constant object.

One morning as he sat at the breakfast table looking at the watch, the second hand paused and quivered in place. He paused with it, his breath held as it stood still for an interminable amount of time. He couldn’t even guess how long he sat watching it, frozen in that single moment in time, as though everything around him had ceased to breathe along with him.

Then, it ticked. Backwards. 

He looked up to see Abe looking at him with concern. 

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Henry said, tucking the watch away. “Yes, fine.”

Abe didn’t look like he believed him, but Henry picked up the newspaper by his plate and gave it his full attention, scanning the day’s current events. Though his watch seemed to be interested in running backwards, Henry had a full day ahead of him and he had no interest in dwelling. If he were to lose the use of his watch, so be it—he would keep it as a memento. That was still better than not having it at all.

 

***

 

When your father has had the same face your entire life, no matter how the clothes and hair might change up, you notice a difference. Even a small one.

Henry came home early from work looking chipper and energetic, pleased with some case they’d solved in record time, and insisted they celebrate with a dinner out. Abe let himself be dragged out to a nice French restaurant uptown, and throughout the meal he couldn’t take his eyes off Henry. There was something about him that had changed, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Abraham, is there a problem?” Henry asked finally. “Is there something you wish to speak with me about?”

“Nah, just tired tonight.” 

He waved away Henry’s ensuing concern, which made him regret the weak excuse. Henry was obsessive about Abe’s health these days, overly worried at every ache and pain. Anyway, had to be his imagination. Perhaps it was his lightheartedness, something he wasn’t used to in Henry anymore. This job and working with good people had made a change in Henry, and for the first time in nearly thirty years he was enjoying life. 

Maybe that’s all it was. Abe picked up his wine glass and clinked it against Henry’s.

“Here’s to another case solved. Good work, Henry.”

Henry grinned, pleased with himself, and took a sip of his wine.

Abe still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different, and it wasn’t just Henry’s attitude. 

 

***

 

Henry dressed as usual, practiced movements honed by years of repetition. Right leg, left leg, right arm, left arm, the shrugging on of waistcoat, the snap of a collar up for his tie.

Only, something was amiss. The action off, the distances minutely different. His body was a well-known quantity, and something was wrong. He buttoned his dress shirt with fingers that felt too light, and by the time he reached his collar, he was convinced it wasn’t fantasy, but all too real.

The collar was too loose, too much space. His chest was not as broad, the fit of the dress shirt wrong. He felt lighter, his legs springing him up in a way that didn’t fit his usual step as he hurried to the mirror.

The face that greeted him in the mirror was not his own. Rather, it was; but as he’d not seen himself in over two hundred years. 

Two hundred and forty-five years, perhaps. Or two hundred and fifty. It was hard to tell, it had been a long time since he’d seen himself thus. Henry lifted his hand to feel his face, and his reflection did the same, a hand passing over the sharper jaw, the facial hair that wasn’t as thick, his hair falling into the riotous, thick curl he remembered hating with a passion in his youth, until it had begun a slow recession at the temples and he knew he’d miss it. Not that his vanity had long to suffer, given that a short while later he was assured that not a hair on his head would ever change again. 

His younger reflection looked pale and terrified. How appropriate. 

It took another fifteen minutes before he worked up the courage to leave the bathroom, knowing he’d have to face Abe eventually. He was half-dressed, his shirt and trousers loose on this leaner form of his young adulthood. 

Abe was scrambling eggs and did a double-take as he saw Henry. He startled, his hand brushing against the hot skillet. Abe swore loudly, and, leaping to instinctive action, Henry jumped forward and hurried to turn on the cold water in the sink, guiding Abe’s hand under it and holding it there. Abe was focused on Henry, the burn barely acknowledged as they stood close together. Abe said nothing, obviously beyond words.

“I don’t know,” Henry answered the unspoken question, and for the first time heard his own voice. Higher, lighter, softer. He focused again on Abe’s hand, inspecting the red line across the pads of his index and middle fingers. “Not too bad. Shouldn’t trouble you long.”

“Forget that. What the hell, Henry? What’s going on?”

“Is it any stranger than the rest of my life?” he pointed out. “Does it make any more or less sense than immortality?”

“Yeah, but…” Abe took his hand from Henry’s and shook it, blowing on the burn. “But I figured by now the rules were set, you know?”

“So did I.” 

Grim reality was his body had changed, reducing him in years, and he had no control over it any more than he had control over the constant resurrection and youthful visage that had been his lot for so long. 

Youth. He thought of himself as looking young, but the features that greeted him now, those of a man not yet in his prime, made him rethink the true meaning of that phrase. 

He called in sick to work, artificially lowering his voice and mumbling to cover the unnatural timbre, pleading a sore throat. Lucas wished him a speedy recovery. He could only hope it would be so. Over the course of the day he ran blood tests, urine tests, self-exams of any sort he could think of. Nothing was amiss, merely his appearance. He finished dressing in his tailored clothes that were now all wrong, only adding to his distress.

When he attached his pocket watch and flipped it open to check the time, as was his ritual each day, he saw the other thing that had gone terribly wrong along with him: the watch was running backwards at a plucky pace, ticking round and round in unnatural fashion. Henry closed it again quickly, putting it in his pocket. 

Was time unwinding him? Was this to be the strange, impossible end to his tale, to be unmade one second at a time?

He didn’t know if he was terrified or elated by the prospect.

 

***

 

After three days of absences, Jo decided to call in on Henry. She was in the neighbourhood and picked up a little basket of fruit as a get-well gesture, figuring that if Henry wasn’t up for a visit she’d drop it off with Abe and have him pass it on. 

To her surprise, when she walked in the shop, Abe and a young teen were seated by the desk. The kid had a loose dress shirt on that looked about three sizes too big for him, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to expose thin arms. She hadn’t realized Abe had picked up an employee to help out. Maybe some kind of school program or something—he looked like he might be in high school. 

The two of them looked at her like deer in the headlights. The boy scrambled to his feet, already a gangly height for his age, grey dress trousers belted tight and looser than the usual style she saw kids wearing. 

“Jo! Good to see you,” Abe said, setting down the statuette in his hands and coming to greet her. “Uh, what can I do for you?”

“Hey Abe. I was nearby and thought I’d see how Henry was doing.” She lifted the little cellophane-wrapped basket in her hands and then shifted her attention to the kid. “Hi, I’m Jo.”

He nodded politely, pulling himself to a proper stance. Something about the action seemed familiar. Actually, he _looked_ familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“Edward,” he said, and the clipped accent made her blink. He came forward offering his hand, nerves apparent but very formal and polite for a kid his age. “Henry’s nephew. I’m visiting from England.”

“Oh,” she said dumbly, then shook herself, forcing a smile. “Sorry, I just—I work with Henry, didn’t realize he had family. Nice to meet you.”

“Yes, right,” Edward stuttered, and he glanced at Abe. “Well, I—“

“Henry lost touch with them a long time ago,” Abe said. “After his father died. They just reconnected a little while ago.”

“That’s great.” 

She smiled reassuringly at Edward, who seemed a nervous kid. Henry was too isolated; him getting back in contact with his family could only be a good thing. And yeah, now that he said it, the family resemblance was incredible. He looked like he could be Henry’s mini-clone.

“Any chance Henry is up for a visit?” she asked Abe. “Thought I might say hi, see how he’s doing.”

Edward rocked on his feet uneasily as Abe shook his head.

“He’s sleeping at the moment. Looks like whatever he’s got really set him back.”

Edward glared at Abe, who smiled pleasantly back.

“Okay, well, tell him I said hi and I hope he’s back on his feet soon. We miss him at work—so quiet without him, it’s eerie.” She handed over the fruit basket and headed out with a last goodbye to Abe and Henry’s nephew. 

It wasn’t until she was a block away that she realized Edward had been wearing Henry’s clothes. The dark blue woven tie that Henry wore frequently, knotted around the too-loose collar, was definitely his, and she was sure the dress shirt and dress pants were as well.

And, to complete the ensemble, the familiar gold chain of Henry’s pocket watch had been dangling at his side. Very odd.

 

***

 

The day Abe woke up to find a five year old sitting on his bed, swamped in a white dress shirt and looking at him with large, sad brown eyes, Abe was finally sure he was going to lose his dad. 

“Hey, Henry,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep.

“Where am I?” Henry said, his voice trembling. “Please, I can’t find Nurse or Mother.”

Abe pulled himself upright in the bed, leaning back against the headboard. It had been coming on slowly; loss of memory, loss of place and time, until he’d caught Henry wandering around the apartment in a near panic one night, frantic with confusion and fear.

“I’m losing my mind,” the ten year old version of his father had said. “Abe, I can’t remember. There are times I forget you, I forget where I am, I don’t—I don’t know what to do.”

And now, a little boy was all that was left of the man he used to be, tears starting to roll down his cheeks as he curled his knees up, all of him swimming in the shirt. Abe beckoned him to come closer, opening his arms up.

“Come here, Henry. It’s going to be okay.”

It was hard to think of him as Henry any longer, the tiny form just a whisper of who he was. Henry crawled across the bed and buried himself in Abe’s arms, his body shivering with the terror that only a child can feel so completely, the sort of fear he remembered from nightmare monsters of his imagination.

“My name’s Abe,” he said, patting Henry’s head and trying to keep his own fear at bay.

“I know,” the boy sniffed. “You’re my friend.”

“Yeah, I’m your friend.” Abe tightened his hold, rocking him as Henry cried like the child he now was. “We’re going to get through this.”

This was not how he expected it to end. He’d always been sure he’d be saying goodbye to Henry, that same face looking back at him to the very end. But then, Henry wasn’t like anyone else—why should the end of his story be any less strange than the rest of his life?

A small click caught his attention. Henry was toying with his pocket watch, opening and shutting it over and again. Abe pulled it from his small fingers and clicked it open to find the hands spiralling backwards at an alarming rate, making it look like a broken wind-up toy rather than a timepiece. As he watched it spin the hands slowed, then stopped. He shook it, but it was frozen.

Henry snatched it back from him, clipping it closed again and holding it to his chest.

“That’s mine. It’s mine, and you can’t have it.”

“I’m not going to take it,” Abe assured him. Henry drew a shuddering breath and burrowed his face into Abe’s shoulder, and Abe put aside anything but the needs of the day to come. The rest of it he’d think about when there was time. He urged Henry up, looking into the little tear-streaked face. “Now, how about we get some breakfast?”

The patter of small feet behind him as they left the bedroom was strange to hear on wood floors that hadn’t seen a child’s presence in as long as they’d lived here. Abe made a mental note to get him some clothes. Unless he wanted Henry to be wandering around like he was costumed as a ghost, Henry’s dress shirts were definitely not going to work any longer. 

 

***

 

Henry refused to stay alone. Abe said he would go and come back quickly, but no. Henry wouldn’t be alone. Abe said they needed to buy things, but where the servants had gone who took care of such tasks, he did not say when Henry asked. 

The world was strange. His mother was gone. Nurse wasn’t anywhere. Father was never home, so that wasn’t so strange, but he was gone too. Only Abe was familiar, and even then Henry did not know why. He knew something was wrong with him, knew that he’d forgotten something—maybe everything—that was important, but whenever he tried to reach for it, it flew away like when he chased the flocks of sparrows on the rolling estate grounds. He couldn’t bear to be parted from Abe, the only thing that made sense to him. Henry followed Abe down the stairs, unable to find shoes because there were none to be found, no matter how many beds he looked under, pleading and pleading until finally Abe agreed to let him come along. 

They stepped out through a door and into a noisy world that moved faster than he could imagine. Henry screamed, because the monsters were real and fierce and loud, and he couldn’t understand what was going on. Abe picked him up and Henry hid his face in his shoulder until they were back upstairs.

Henry was tucked into bed, a blanket wrapped around him, and from a far distance he could hear Abe’s voice.

“Hello, Jo? I need your help with something.”

 

***

 

Jo knocked on the door once more with her free hand, the other clutching the bag of mysterious items Abe had asked her to pick up. 

Her shopping trip and drive here had been a whirlwind, spurred on by the vague phone call and the worry in Abe’s voice. Henry had been away from work for two weeks now, and she was growing concerned. Abe’s strange shopping list and refusal to explain only made her more so.

After a minute, Abe appeared and hustled to the door, opening it and ushering her inside.

“Everything okay?” she asked. “Is Henry alright?”

“Uh, well… No, not really.” He looked harried and exhausted. “It’s a little hard to—“

“Abe? Abe, where are you?” A piping voice interrupted him, and Abe rubbed a hand over his face with a groan. 

“Look, things are all a little weird right now. I’m not sure what to tell you.”

At the back of the shop, a little boy’s face peeked around the doorframe, and then quickly disappeared.

“How many kids do you have visiting?” she asked Abe, who was making a shooing motion with his hands towards the boy, and stopped hastily when Jo turned towards him. 

“What?” He looked confused, then took the bags from her. Kids clothes, a few essential groceries, all of which she’d purchased without question. 

“Edward—Henry’s nephew? Is that another nephew? Did Henry’s um, sibling come along?” She didn’t know if Henry had a brother or a sister, she hadn’t had time to ask when she was last here.

“Oh. Oh, right.” Abe smiled briefly, hefting the bag. “Thanks for this. I hate to toss you right out again, but you know—got a few things to get on here.”

The little face appeared again, and when Abe saw Jo’s eyes flicker over, he sighed. This time Jo smiled at the boy and his face lit up. He leapt through the doorway. He was swamped in a mens’ dress shirt, only his feet peeking from beneath as it billowed around him like a nightgown. 

“Jo!” he cried, and started running for her, arms outstretched. “Hello, Jo!”

The little boy careened into her with surprising strength, arms wrapped around her hips, and she looked at Abe, mystified. She hadn’t been here more than a minute or two last time, and she hadn’t seen a hint of the kid around, but he sure seemed to know her. 

“Hey there,” she said, patting the kid on the head. He had a thick mess of light brown hair, knotted curls that looked like they could use some love. “What’s your name?”

“Ah—“ Abe stuttered quickly, but the boy tilted his head back with a pout.

“Henry. I’m Henry. Why did you forget?”

“Henry, why don’t you go back upstairs,” Abe said, gently pulling Henry from her. “Hey, be a good kid and take this up with you.” 

“Alright,” Henry agreed.

He wrapped his arms around the shopping bag, which looked to be about the limit of his carrying capacity, and with aimless, wandering footsteps made his way back to the shop, stopping periodically as he was distracted by shiny trinkets in the store before remembering his task and disappearing through the doorway to thud up the stairs. 

Jo finally found her tongue again after he was gone. The kid was the spitting image of her Henry, just like Edward had been. The two must be brothers.

“Edward’s little brother?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

She frowned at the odd answer, starting to wonder exactly what the real story with these kids was. Something didn’t feel right here.

“Is Henry around? We’ve all been worried about him, it’s been a while since he was at work.”

Abe shook his head, and Jo realized he was getting upset, something bothering him enough to drive him into silence, and she was about to ask when a loud thump, followed by a cascade of noises and a pitiful wail cut short any further conversation. They both dashed for the stairs to find little Henry tumbled to the bottom, surrounded by vegetables and assorted clothes, his lip and nose bloodied. His hands fluttered near but not touching his face as he shrieked and sobbed.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Jo said, soothing him as she stooped down to take a look at his face. “Looks like it was a big bump, but you’ll be fine.”

Abe had a handkerchief at the ready and she took it, pinching Henry’s nose to stop the nose bleed while Abe gathered the items spread all over the floor. 

“What happened, buddy?” Jo asked, rubbing Henry’s back while he leaned against her, cuddled into her side, sobbing in fear more than pain.

“Tripped on my shirt,” he mumbled into the handkerchief. “I fell.” He turned watery eyes on Abe. “I’m sorry I dropped everything.”

“It’s okay. But this is why we had to get you some clothes,” he answered, tucking a bundle of carrots into the bag. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs and cleaned up.”

When Henry latched onto her hand and clung to her, Abe reluctantly let her shepherd Henry to the bathroom while Abe set things in the kitchen. She sat the little boy on the toilet lid and got a cloth wet, kneeling down to gently dab at the blood. He’d bitten his bottom lip in the fall, leaving it fattened and red, but nothing that wouldn’t heal up quickly enough. 

He had blood all down the front of him and on his hands, and as she turned his hand over to wipe it she found Henry’s pocket watch tight in his grasp.

“How come you’ve got that?” she asked, tapping it gently. “Henry’s pretty attached to this.”

He uncurled his fingers and looked at the watch in his palm.

“It’s mine.”

“Oh, really?”

“My father gave it to me when he died.”

Jo’s amusement faded under the chill blow of those words.

“What?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm. “What did you say?”

Henry looked up at her, his eyes wide and brown, streaks of blood still across his cheek that she’d missed.

“It doesn’t work anymore. It’s broken.” He pressed a finger to the catch and it sprung open. He thrust it at her. “See? It doesn’t work.”

The unreal, horrible implications of the little boy’s serious words numbed her, but he held out the pocket watch to her as though he wanted her to take it, and so she did, faking a smile for his benefit. The second hand was stuck, blocking the other hands all clustered at the twelve. She swept a finger over the glass and the hands quivered, shook, and then, the second hand ticked forward slowly. 

“I think it’s working. Maybe it needs to be wound,” she said, trying to think of something innocuous to say while the boy’s words screamed through her thoughts. “Here,” she said, giving it back to him. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

He nodded, absorbed in the watch and the slow tick, and she quickly left the bathroom in search of Abe. He was putting the last of the groceries away, and Jo waylaid him between the fridge at the counter.

“Where’s Henry?” she demanded. 

“He’s out.”

“His _son_ thinks he’s dead.”

“His what?” Abe said, gaping at her with a tomato held in each hand. “What exactly did he say to you?” 

“He said his father gave him a pocket watch when he died. It’s Henry’s pocket watch, Abe.”

Abe leaned against the counter, looking at the floor between them, silent.

“It’s working again,” came a small and quiet voice. 

They both turned to find Henry standing in the hall, looking at them and holding up the watch. With the blood down the front of the white dress shirt, already fading to brown stains, he was a frightening sight. “Do you think if it works I’ll get my mind back? I know I forgot everything.” His swollen lip was trembling, his eyes filling with tears. “I know I did, but I don’t know what it was.”

Jo turned back to Abe.

“What the hell is going on here?” she hissed.

“I wish I knew,” he said with a heavy sigh. 

 

***

 

Abe grabbed the blanket from Henry’s bed and brought it to the couch where Henry was asleep on Jo, curled up in her arms with the pocket watch still cradled in his hands. Jo, visibly disturbed by his focus, had earlier tried to part him from it, but Henry had thrown a hysterical fit, exhausting himself with nearly half an hour of violent screaming until they’d managed to calm him down. Jo had managed to soothe him eventually, and he’d fallen asleep on her, drained by the tantrum.

“It’s not possible,” Jo whispered to him as he spread the blanket over them. “It can’t be Henry.”

“It is,” Abe said. He sat next to her. “I don’t get it either. But two weeks, every day he’s been younger.”

“So then, Edward…”

“Was Henry. After that, his memory started to go, and now—well, you can see. Now he’s not really there anymore. But obviously something is still in there.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Lots of things about Henry don’t make sense.” 

Henry shifted and sighed in his sleep, trusting and peaceful in Jo’s arms. If his actions now were any indication, Jo was definitely important enough for him to have carried her with him into this second childhood. As far as Abe could tell, the only things that still meant anything in Henry’s head were Abe, Jo, and that damned pocket watch. 

“What do we do?”

Abe looked up at Jo, at the concern in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, or if that was a question about the Henry she thought was missing, or what. He shrugged.

“I think we wait and see.”

From the look of it, Jo didn’t think much of his answer, but she said nothing. They sat together listening to Henry’s soft breathing for a few hours, and then Jo let Abe take him from her and put him to bed. He showed her out with a promise to call her the next day, and she hovered outside the shop for an extra few seconds before finally turning away to leave. 

He wasn’t sure whether to expect child protection services on his doorstep tomorrow, or if Jo would let this play out. But he hoped he had someone on his side now. He was way out of his depth—even for someone who’d dealt with Henry’s craziness all his life, he was totally lost. 

 

***

 

Henry woke and stretched, his legs aching. He rubbed his eyes to wipe away his fatigue. His clothes were too tight and he was _starving_.

He made his way into the kitchen, helping himself to a slice of bread and some cheese, preparing himself the light snack, and realized that everything was within his reach. He looked down at himself, at the skinny body clad in tight pants and stretched t-shirt, and did not recognize it. Dropping the bread to the counter he scampered to the bathroom, climbing up on the sink to see himself in the mirror.

He was a child. He didn’t know why, but he thought he’d be bigger. His answering reflection drooped in disappointment, and then he studied himself closer. He was a child, but he was bigger. Of course he was a child, because he was one. Yet he shouldn’t be. Why, exactly, did he think this was wrong? How was he both wrong and right at the same time?

He turned from the mirror and held his head, the conflicting thoughts scrambling him up until he wanted to scream. Something was wrong with him, but he didn’t know what.

There was a knock at the door and it pushed open, and Abe was in the doorway, his eyes alive and sparkling as he looked at Henry, a grin lighting up his greying features. Henry couldn’t understand what he was so happy about.

“Why am I a child?” Henry demanded. “Why _shouldn’t_ I be a child?”

The question made no sense, even to him, but Abe seemed to understand and came into the bathroom, taking his hands.

“I think it’ll pass,” he said warmly. “I’ve got a good feeling about it.” He looked Henry over, and then urged him off the counter. “But come on, we better get you different clothes before you Hulk out of those ones.”

Henry let himself be changed, and now all that he could wear was an oversized shirt once again. It was his, despite obviously not being his. Like everything else, it made no sense, so he accepted it without further fight. 

A ringing bell sounded through the apartment and Henry spun around, looking for it, but Abe was already on the move to the stairs. Henry ran after him, not willing to let him out of his sight. The world was a terrifying place, and only Abe was safety. In the shop downstairs—which had a familiar smell, old polish and dust—Abe was crossing to the door to open it.

“Hey Jo, how’s it going?” 

It was Jo. Oh, the two of them, Jo and Abe. Yes, that was as it should be, the two of them. He remembered the soft feel of her shirt against his cheek, her warm comfort as she cleaned him and cared for him. He remembered days working at her side, of jokes and casework, and something about her in a school play…

Then it was gone in a flash, and Henry was left in the shop again, Abe and Jo staring at him.

“Henry? Is that you?” She knelt in front of him.

“Yes, of course.” Because at least that answer was obvious, and she shouldn’t have to ask it. It hurt a little that his friend did not know him, but he would try to be patient and kind, because that was what his mother and father had taught him. “Who else would I be?”

“Holy shit,” Jo whispered, and Henry gaped at her.

Ladies did _not_ speak like that. Or did they? Well, this one did, apparently.

 

***

 

It went on for days and days, and Jo could see the changes happening before her eyes. In less than a week, Henry was taller than her, a young teen, then nearly a man, his voice deepening and features shifting until he was more the man she worked with than the child who’d fallen asleep in her arms. She dropped by each day, and each time he knew her more, his mind returning. 

“You don’t have to be here, Jo,” Henry told her one day when he answered the door instead of Abe, looking perhaps fifteen or sixteen—the ‘Edward’ she’d met nearly two weeks ago—once again clad in Henry’s poorly fitting clothing. “I found puberty awkward enough the first time, I don’t necessarily need an audience a second time around.”

“Henry, have you been out of the house since this started?” 

He shook his head, glancing around the street behind her.

“No, it seemed unwise. And for a while I…” He shook his head again. “No, I haven’t.”

For a while he hadn’t remembered anything, been set back to some primal stage where the world made no sense. Little Henry had sat in her lap and told her tales of his father’s horses, carriage rides, servants who stoked fires on cold winter nights, and other tales straight out of Dickens’ novels. Maybe the real world had been a bit much for him to tackle. But he seemed more like himself now.

“You want to go for a walk?”

Henry wet his lips as he studied her, a gesture and expression she knew so well. It was really him, however this was working, and after a week of being certain Abe wasn’t doing some sort of elaborate child swapping joke at her expense, she had shrugged off the weirdness of it and tried to be useful. He nodded. 

“Let me tell Abe,” he said quickly.

He dashed back inside calling for him, sprinting up the stairs, and was back in a flash. She smiled at him as he came outside. He looked like a coat rack in the oversized clothing, but he’d refused offers of different ones. 

“I wish I had that much energy,” she said. “Guess being a kid again isn’t all bad.”

“I’d give anything for it to be over,” he answered, his head down as they walked along.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“It’s all right. Whatever this is, it’s a full experience. Hormones and all. I’ve been a—what did Abe call me—a ‘sullen little bastard,’ I believe it was.”

Jo laughed, and Henry grinned at her, wide and sweet, his eyes lighting up.

“Sullen or not, as completely whacked out as this situation is I still think you make a pretty cute kid,” she said, reassuringly rubbing his back briefly.

Henry’s mouth hung open for a moment, then he shut it and looked away from her. Within seconds his cheeks were flaming pink, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. It took her a moment, and then she remembered the embarrassing teenaged years of her own life, when all it took was a compliment or a simple touch to turn her brain to mush and set her heart going.

Oh, poor Henry. She felt terrible for laughing at him, but it was _adorable_.

“Oh, hush,” Henry muttered, rolling his eyes. “This is intolerable.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But at least it seems to be setting itself straight.”

“Yes, there is that.” He turned worried eyes on her. “But what if it stops? Will I get stuck at some point? Will I overshoot and continue to age?” He stopped walking, grinding to a halt as though a thought had just occurred to him, and his eyes were wide and unfocused, far inside himself. “Will I keep aging? I might. I might—I might get old.”

He was stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and Jo shuffled him off to the side to get him out of the way of the stream of people walking past.

“Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be alright.” 

She had no idea if it would be alright, but she wanted it to be, and it was all too far outside what she could possibly understand, so she was going to just exert her will on the situation and believe it would be alright. Henry would go back to normal, and that would be that. She had to believe it. Henry leaned towards her, sharply focused on her.

“No, Jo—you don’t understand. I might _die_.”

Jo couldn’t understand why he looked so earnestly excited about it.

 

***

 

Abe stood next to Henry as they both gazed into the full-length mirror in the living room, studying Henry.

“Well, I think that’s it.”

Henry nodded his agreement.

“Yes, I think so.” He tilted his head to the side, eyeing himself. He stuck a finger in the collar of his shirt, then smoothed his hands over his chest to tug at his waistcoat. “Everything fits properly, and I feel…” He spread his hands out in front of him, studying the backs and then the palms. “I feel normal.”

Abe relaxed his shoulders. Henry had been closing on this for days now, his personality returning to the father Abe knew, and yet the confirmation from Henry was what he needed to hear. His throat felt tight as he choked on relief. Henry turned to him, concern lighting his features.

“Abraham?”

“Nothing, sorry,” he said hastily, clearing his throat. “Nothing.”

“It’s obviously not.” 

“Well, I was—I was pretty sure I was gonna lose you.”

Henry’s expression softened. He pulled Abe into a hug with a sigh. Abe went willingly, taking comfort in the familiar size and shape of his father, the same man who’d been there since the beginning to wipe away these worries. All back to normal, back to the way it should be. It was selfish of him to wish this immortality on Henry when he knew it tortured the man, but damned if it wasn’t the best thing in the world to always have him there when Abe needed him, even at this stage in Abe’s life. 

Henry released him and kissed him on the forehead, still as doting as ever, and Abe snorted in amusement.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, I’ve gotta get down to the shop. Jo said she’s going to drop by tonight and see how you’re doing.”

“Ah, yes.”

Abe watched Henry fold in on himself, his brows lowering as Jo came into his thoughts.

“You going to tell her? She handled all this pretty well.”

Henry nodded slowly.

“Yes, she’s been very kind and patient. Taken it all remarkably well, I think. But I don’t know.”

Abe accepted that and left Henry to his thoughts. When he last glanced back before heading downstairs, Henry was still standing where Abe had left him, studying his pocket watch. It seemed to be ticking along like normal now, not a whit of strange behaviour. Along with it, Henry was back to normal.

By now, Abe hated the damned trinket, and wished he could smash it under a rock.

 

***

 

Henry returned to work, and though Jo knew the entire story of his near-month long absence, she did not say a word about it, nor about having visited him in that time, to anyone. She acted as grateful to see him back as the others, and the camaraderie of their welcome touched him deeply. It was unexpected to realize he had friends who cared whether he was there or not. It had been a long time since he’d had that. 

He avoided Jo and she let him, but it lasted all of four days before she knocked on his office door and cornered him.

“How are you doing?”

He leaned back in his chair, dropping his pen on the desk. 

“Fine, thank you. None the worse for my experience.”

She came to sit on the ledge behind his desk, her usual perch when she visited him, and he swivelled around to face her. 

“Any idea what happened? I mean, have you ever heard of anything like this before?”

“No, I can’t say I have.” He shrugged. “Quite the mystery.” 

But his fingers automatically plucked at his pocket watch, palming it, flipping it over in his grasp, and it wasn’t until Jo’s eyes settled on the movement that he realized he’d done it. 

“That thing, you were really attached to it when you were—um. It’s hard to even say it, I feel like it can’t possibly have been real,” she finished with a faint laugh, but the levity was gone quickly. “I’m sorry, that can’t have been easy.”

“Arguably not the strangest thing that’s happened to me in my lifetime,” he said, flipping open the watch to check the time. In the week since he’d come back to himself, it had kept its usual steady plodding beat, and he found it in his hand more often than not.

“Really? Because for most people, this would be—hey, Henry. Henry? What’s wrong?”

He barely heard her as he sat upright in alarm. The watch was stopped. He flipped the dial and wound it carefully, then popped it back into place, but nothing. He shook it and held it to his ear. Not so much as a faint tick. 

“Everything alright?” Jo asked. 

“It’s stopped.” He stared at it, the import of it tickling at the back of his mind. “It’s dead.”

“Maybe you can get it fixed?”

“Maybe,” he said. 

But something told him that perhaps he didn’t want to.

“So what’s so crazy that it beats turning into a kid for a couple weeks?” Jo asked. “Because that’s a story I’ve gotta hear.”

Henry tucked the watch away slowly and stumbled for words.

“On reconsideration, it would indeed be hard to top this.” 

He offered her a weak smile. Her head tilted to the side, her gaze sharp and curious and not at all fooled by his dodge, but he wasn’t ready to tackle that conversation with her yet. 

It could wait. 

 

***

 

It was a year later, very nearly to the day, when Henry found his first grey hair. He studied his face in the mirror. While still his own, it was not the same at all.

Henry Morgan was, for all the world could see, now thirty-six years old.

**Author's Note:**

> And there's [fanart of tiny Henry Morgan](http://jo-martinez.tumblr.com/post/114272099335/so-i-took-another-practice-test-thingy-today-and) by [jo-martinez!](http://jo-martinez.tumblr.com)


End file.
